Saturday, April 28, 2007

Iranian Teachers Protest in front of Iran's Parliament.

More than 45 teachers were arrested in Hamedan on 7 April. Other teacher union leaders were also arrested, notably the Superintendent of the Teachers’ Trade Association of Iran, Aliakbar Baghani, who was taken away at his workplace at the Roshd Middle School in Tehran on 16 April.

Most schools in northwestern Iran remained closed on Monday due to a teachers' strike to protest against the arrest of dozens of their colleagues in the past few days. The two-day protest which started Sunday was almost unanimous in the northwestern Kurdish cities of Sagghez, Marivan, Sanandaj and Bukan. "If our colleagues will not be freed, schools will probably remain closed in the coming days," said Davood Rouhani, a spokesman for teachers in Sanandaj.

Iranian teachers have been staging protests across the country for the past 11 weeks and many leaders of teachers' unions have been arrested. Teachers are demanding pay hikes - their salaries have not been raised for years - and protesting against the government's decision to fire teachers who are not 'loyal' to authorities.

About one thousand teachers believed to be too secular or belonging to ethnic minorities have been fired or induced to retire early in the past few weeks.